Raindrops, Teardrops
by lunambulism
Summary: [Cross-posted from AO3] For a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of pounding rain and cold, tight thunder and the coffee goes cold in Conan's grasp. He grips the handle tighter in vain in a simple fruitless attempt to warm it up again. General - Canon


Notes: Translated lyrics from **濡れた髪に触れられた時** ( _Nureta Kami ni Furerareta Toki)_ , or 'That Time I was Touched by your Wet Hair' (Sappy title oh lord) by Yuuhei Satellite. God the song gave me intense feels like UGH WHY. I recommend the Iceon arrange more than the Autobahn remix though, unless you like electronicky dubstep so yeah (But Autobahn's still good).

I wrote this when I was just utterly agitated and wanting to bawl my eyes out at the same time so probably nothing's going to make sense whoops. /liesdown

-.-.-

(For sorrow and anger alike, their beginning always starts with you.)

It's raining.

 _Drip._

It's blending into him.

 _Drop._

It's nothing but a paper-thin overcoat for the real drops of water.

 _Splash._

And he stops, glasses smudged, clothes soaked, and stares at the patch of vivid, ocean blue amongst the pitiful greys.

 _Some time ago, it was only a drizzle, then the clouds gathered, piled, until it couldn't be stopped._

(When I hid my tears in the rain, you raised your umbrella for me.)

"Hey, boy, what are you doing without an umbrella?"

The rain stops.

"It's okay, have mine. I'll be fine without one."

But it still drips. Down and off.

"Let's get inside first, how about the café over there?" A nod, small, subtle, but noticed nonetheless, and he smiles, "Great, Poirot should be open right now."

He presses against the small boy, large, smooth hands gripping and steadying the boy's own, shaky fingers, as they pushed through the traffic and dull splashes of other bland shades, raised in the air.

He smells like meadows and tinges of coffee and fresh-printed paper. There's no rain.

The smell is familiar, like holding a photo album of memories you don't have anymore.

(That time when I was touched by your wet hair, the painful pulsation within my chest beat fast.)

The older boy's hair is plastered onto his face, the remainder of water flowing like waterfalls. The traffic light is tinged an unexciting shade of deep maroon, blunted by rain. The pedestrian light flashes in the same way as the traffic lights, in a lifeless deep green.

His footsteps are large and traversing, legs wiry and muscular, but still lean. The shoes are tattered around the soles, and the fading blue jeans maybe just a size too small.

The bell jingles, a sad, melancholic sound nobody ever really pays close attention to, and the door welcomes in a dash of rain and wind and debris along with it. He closes it hurriedly, and plucks the umbrella up and folds it in.

The water runs, drips.

"Table for two?"

"Yes please, thank you, Amuro-san."

"Anytime."

(Your kindness that drenches my shoulders is like foul play, all the more stealing me away,)

They sit in silence, relishing the emptiness of the place, absence of the people usually here for lunch rush. Blue eyes flicker here and there out of slinking curiosity.

A woman in her twenties, medium length blonde hair, definitely foreign, wears glasses like him. An older man, already sporting white hair and a bristly white moustache and also glasses, sits opposite her, stirring his tea slowly, almost religiously.

Another man over there, peculiar long, silver hair and dressed in black like he was going to attend a funeral, sitting with another man wearing sunglasses and a slightly flat chin. Two tables over, a woman, sharp, icy eyes and flowing, blonde hair. A bottle of vermouth sits near her empty wine glass.

"Two lemon pies and two straight black shots. Anything else?"

"Nothing, thank you."

It's been almost years since he's had coffee like that. A small sip, slightly wary, tells him that it's a refreshing kind of bitter, something familiar, something relished.

Left hand under the porcelain cup, two fingers around the handle, and the thumb pushing against the edge as he brings it in for sip number two. The stranger mirrors his actions without even looking upwards.

A drop patters onto the table, leaving a brown trail in it's wake.

Left hand grips the butter knife, thumb situated on the top edge of the blade. Right hand grips the fork like a food critique, steady as the blade cuts through, and the white of the plate shows.

He subconsciously follows.

"What's your name?" He asks between small mouthfuls of aromatic coffee and lemon filling.

"Ku-Edogawa Conan."

"Conan-kun, nice to meet you. I'm Kudou Shinichi," He beams from his cup. Conan sinks his head lower.

"Nice to meet you, Shinichi-niichan."

The thunder growls low and fortissimo outside. The droplets of rain, tiny balls of water patter even harsher onto the ground, and everything else as well.

(Without even raising the umbrella in the rain.)

Something rings, shrill and high yet concealing an undertone of regret, and it stops as Shinichi picks it up, "Hello, Ran?"

For a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of pounding rain and cold, tight thunder and the coffee goes cold in Conan's grasp. He grips the handle tighter in vain and a simple fruitless attempt to warm it up again.

"I'm sorry, Ran, I'm still on this huge case. This is really important to me, and I'm getting close to solving it, but I'll try to come home as soon as possible." A pause holding unsaid questions and unconsidered answers, "Yes, it has been three years already. I'm sorry."

He hangs up with a lonely _beep_ and sighs.

Something grows inside Conan, churning and twisted, and he asks slowly, "A case?"

Shinichi turns his head and tucks his phone – red with a soccer strap, exactly like Conan's old phone – and his eyes turn strained, and suddenly the lingering eye bags seem so much more visible now.

"Yeah, I can't go home because of it."

"Can you tell me about it?" Conan's childish, cattish act is thrown into the corner, forgotten.

(Now I feel this present time is even sweeter than the beautified past.)

"It's.. something I've been trying to destroy for the last few years," A melancholic hum floats around, "Years, huh? It doesn't even feel like time anymore. Every day's the same, don't you think?"

Conan only nods, eyes tracing out randomised patterns the raindrops created on the window, each drop looking as empty and glassy as the last. Each drop is a day he's lost. Each drop is a piece of his soul which he's turned into a white lie turned black.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Kudou-kun, Poirot's almost at it's closing time now, but you can stay a bit longer until the rain subsides, if you'd like," The blonde waiter's voice pipes up, and Shinichi's eyes take a lone glance outside at the chaos and shakes his head.

"We should be leaving now, otherwise it might get worse."

(In our world shrouded by the rain, as long as we're together, we'll persist.)

Outside, it's a mess.

Wind and clouds and sprays of water – sharp and slicing to the skin – fly everywhere - A pandemonium.

There were still some people out on the streets. _Fools_ , Conan thinks, _to be out in sadistic weather like this._ There was an old man, slightly more round than other's his age, trying his best to shield three children from the cold with one flimsy, multicoloured umbrella.

Another little girl, short, strawberry-blonde hair and a piercing gaze grips her handle of her red and white umbrella. The words APTX are splayed over the top of the umbrella.

A boy and a girl, one dark-skinned and wearing a baseball cap likely to fling out into the rain anytime now and the other's hair held up in a dainty ponytail. They were bickering as they still held the grip of the emerald-green umbrella together.

Another girl with messy hair holding a baby-blue umbrella walking alongside two boys holding a white and blue striped umbrella together. One of them looked to be British.

And a girl, chocolate hair and soft, periwinkle eyes standing on the pavement without any shelter. The rain drips all over her.

(That time when I was touched by your wet hair, I understood that I didn't want to relinquish this distance between us.)

Something snapped inside both of them when they laid eyes on her.

The rain just stopped, quivering, like it was holding back, before storming down, down, _down_ into a rushing, forced torrent of his lies, his masks, evasions and all of what he's never wanted to be.

The things he hated, he's become, so easily.

(Just by you being there, I'm both relieved and uneasy.)

Conan stands while the tsunami runs. The multicoloured umbrella's gone. The red and white's disappeared as well as the forget-me-not blue and the blue and white.

Ran's no longer standing in the middle of nothing. She's been engulfed by rain and the twisted heartaches and frantic worry and nostalgia washed down with it.

Only Shinichi's still there, with his contrasting, hopeful blue umbrella, and a downhearted but encouraging smile. His hands are warm and comforting in Conan's, as the sound of water – sound of their sins and weaknesses and the symbols of what _fools_ they had transformed into.

Lies—masks—cracks.

The water envelopes them, throwing them off their feet, swirling into it's arms. Every little movement they move is counteracted, and they can't move – won't move.

Conan looks up to Shinichi with eyes of nothing.

Shinichi looks back at him and mouths something vague and blurred into a flurry of rain, rain, _tears_.

And he's gone, leaving Conan alone in the icy torrent and suddenly with a burning of his throat and begging of the lungs for oxygen.

The sapphire-blue umbrella is swept away, out of his reach as his fingers flex out for it.

Conan twitches his lips upwards – bitterness seeping through the permanent cracks in his façade, and exhales, the bubbles rising upwards and away from him.

He's still for a second. Two. Three.

The water swirls jeeringly around him, but he's not swept anywhere. The last little, fragile bubble disappears out of sight and around him, the blue umbrella circles him like a vulture.

(Please, forgive this weak love of mine.)

He breathes in-

-And never out again.


End file.
